


bookish

by warmth



Series: christmas [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Book store, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 09:15:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmth/pseuds/warmth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was there everyday, most times with coffee.</p><p>He scanned the shelf, grabbed a book, eyes sliding over the spines to see if he wanted to switch out, then went to sit down. It wasn’t the same book; Stiles would’ve noticed if it were, but he never bought what he sat there to read. Once he had flipped through the pages, he would return it to the shelf, and leave.</p><p>Or the one where Stiles works at a book store.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bookish

He was there everyday, most times with coffee.

He scanned the shelf, grabbed a book, eyes sliding over the spines to see if he wanted to switch out, then went to sit down. It wasn’t the same book; Stiles would’ve noticed if it were, but he never bought what he sat there to read. Once he had flipped through the pages, he would return it to the shelf, and leave. Occasionally, he would pick up a textbook and get in line. 

“Hi,” Stiles said the first time he did so, the book landing with a solid thump. He had dark hair, styled up away from his face, revealing perfect cheekbones, and bright eyes, stubble trailing its way up his cheeks, across his chin. The man raised his eyebrows and Stiles resisted the urge to cringe away. “Never mind, then…” He mumbled, ringing up the book and wrestling it into a plastic bag, fumbling under the other man’s intense gaze. “Uh, twelve fifty-three.”

He dropped the money into his hand, not a penny out of place and swept out of the door. Stiles sunk down the counter, where Lydia found him, scowling down at him with her hands on her hips. 

He came in the next day, much to Stiles’ conflicting feelings. He picked out a book and sat at his usual table in the corner of the store, where they sold coffee and pastries. He wondered if that area was a gimmick to make people stay, to give the employees a chance to kiss up until they bought something. A money scam? He, for one, knew the coffee wasn’t _that_ overpriced. 

“You’re here a lot.” Stiles hedged, attempting to set up the display at the front of the shop. The guy looked up, almost shocked that someone was talking to him. Stiles rolled his eyes, pulling out some new John Green book from the box, stacking them evenly, trying to be as exact as Lydia had drawn them on the paper she shoved at him that morning.

“And?” His voice was smooth, like velvet. 

Oh God, he just compared this guy’s voice to velvet, he was so screwed. _I refuse to the Bella to your Edward, hot guy that comes in here all the time,_ He thought to himself. 

“Just stating a fact,” Stiles shrugged. “What’s your name, anyway?”

This talking thing was way easier when he wasn’t staring at his face. 

There was a pause. “…Derek.”

“Derek! Why didn’t I think of that?”

Derek gave him a confused look. It wasn’t adorable. 

“You know, cause there was a ‘D’ on your credit card that one time you actually paid with a credit card. ‘D. Hale,’ right?” 

Apparently, though, time was up, the clock had run out, whatever, and Derek didn’t feel like talking anymore. Stiles watched as he tossed his coffee cup in the trash in a smooth arc, standing, replacing the book on the shelf and exiting without so much as a nod. 

He sighed and got back to stacking books, before Lydia skinned him alive. 

*

“So, why don’t you buy anything, Derek Hale?” Stiles asked, hanging upside down from the counter where they served coffee after replacing the milk. 

“I buy things,” He replied gruffly over the cover of Treasure Island. 

“Textbooks, sure. But you read everything _but_ textbooks in here, and you never buy any of it. I’m pretty sure Lyds would let me kick you out.” He grinned. Derek didn’t look up. He supposed that was the end of the conversation. Occasionally, he refused to respond to their talks, but Stiles didn’t mind. He could talk enough for them both. 

“You seem unhappy, Derek.” Stiles reached behind him, grabbing a post-it note and doodling a sharpie smile on it. He walked up, leaning in and sticking it over Derek’s scowling mouth. “There we go! You’re actually smiling! Well, sort of.” He winced when Derek glared up at him, making no move to remove the post-it; it actually made him look scarier. He checked his watch. 

“Oh, would you look at that! I have to go to class! College and stuff, real hardship, you know, Scholarships, Stanford, the works!” 

He ran out without looking back. 

Lydia yelled at him for leaving a stranger in the store alone, but when he came in that morning, Derek had locked up and there was a post-it with a smiley face on it stuck to the door. 

*

“You go to Stanford?”

Stiles looked up as Derek entered, surprised. “Whoa, buddy! Look who started a conversation with their old friend Stiles! I’m so proud.” He grinned. 

“I’m not actually socially inept, you know that right?” Derek gave him a weary look. 

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Clearly not, since you kept talking.” He gave him a look, before stalking off into the fiction section. 

“I do,” Stiles said quietly. “I’m back in Beacon Hills for winter break.” 

Derek looked at him strangely. “You said you have a scholarship.”

“Yes, sir!” He beamed. “Second in my class only to one Miss Lydia Martin. Her mom actually owns this place, it’s a family thing. She’s making her run it for the holidays and she enlisted me.” He rolled his eyes. “But she goes back off to MIT in a week, and hopefully my baby will be fixed and I can make the drive back up.”

Derek nodded, settling in to read his book. Stiles went back to reading over his textbook. 

As he was leaving, he said in a voice so quiet Stiles nearly missed it, “If it isn’t fixed, I can give you a ride.”

Stiles stared after him for a long time. 

Was Derek Hale interested in him?

*

“Merry almost Christmas, Derek!” He called when Derek came in. He raised his eyebrows. 

“It’s four days away.”

“That was so unenthusiastic, say it again.”

Derek snorted. “I’m not going to say it again.”

“Fine, _I_ will say it again then! It’s four days away! Yay!” 

“You’re ridiculous, Stiles.”

“As are you, Derek Hale, as are you.”

*

“It’s Christmas Eve, you so can’t say anything.”

Derek eyed his Santa hat wearily, following the lights flashing around Stiles’ neck. 

“Your necklace is going to give me seizure.”

“Oh my God, seriously? My friend used to be epileptic, she isn’t anymore because Peter bit her—“

“What?”

“But, yeah, really sorry!”

“You said someone _bit_ her.”

Stiles shook his head rapidly. “No! I just… I don’t know?”

“Did you say _Peter_ bit your friend?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “So, you’re a werewolf, right?”

Derek jolted visibly and he sighed. “Ugh, I was hoping—Dude, chill. I’ve known about the creatures of the night for years, you don’t need to have an asthma attack over it. Anyway! I was hoping that I might finally have met someone that I liked that _wasn’t_ going to get me nearly killed. You should know I have no self preservation, so I kind of just run with things. Hah! Run with things. Because I run with wolves!”

“You like me?” 

Stiles gave him a droll stare. “Out of everything I said, _that_ was what you zero in on?”

Derek grinned, exposing sharpened teeth, just to show Stiles that he was right, before retracting them, and leaning over the counter to slot their lips together. 

Stiles Stilinski decided that 2012 was a pretty good year for a gig at a bookstore. 

*

 


End file.
